STEVE DREWETT
KUJENGA SOCIETY

KuJenga Society is the first solo album from Newtown Neurotics frontman Steve Drewett. Taking a break from his history of releasing super catchy and marvellously crafted punk tunes, Steve now turns in 12 acoustic/acoustically driven songs of love, hate and protest showing the full range of his writing abilities, from full blown pop songs (Around Love, The One, If I Should Ever Let You Down) to dark introverted torments (The Killing of You, Inch Away and If Only) and then to cap it all, one of the finest Christmas Songs to have been written for many years, It’s Christmas Time! (Oh yeah, NaNaNa).  Like many of Steve songs this tells a story which is relevant at any time of the year. The title of the album kuJenga (from the Swahili ‘To Build’) Society refers to the withdrawing of community resources in these times of austerity as being like the popular Jenga game, where you slowly withdraw wooden blocks until the tower collapses. The question the song poses is “are we still tottering, are we still waiting to fall, does a final piece still need to go, before they bury us all” The common factor to all of the songs is the sense of beauty the melodies bring to whatever the subject matter of the lyric.